USB speakers (no sound card) - how much of a performance hit?

[Davez621]

I have always been a big fan of USB digital speakers, ever since I got my first pair of Philips in 1999. (for those unfamiliar: they don't require a sound card, instead the signal remains in pure digital form until it reaches the speaker). I find the audio quality is vastly superior to any 'regular' set of speakers using a sound card.

But I've always wanted to know how much of a performance hit (in gaming) they cause? Most benchmarks don't include sound, such as Doom 3, so they are useless, and its almost impossible to find any benchmarks on the web which compare on-board (or software) sound vs. sound cards.

Can anyone give me an answer, perhaps someone with experience with USB speakers? Or how can I go about benchmarking this myself? Thanks.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

USB speakers... interesting.

Well, for one thing since the processing is done within your speakers itself, I'm sure that it won't affect it as much as using regular speakers on integrated sound.

 

[Davez621]

Yes but all the audio processing is still done by the CPU. The digital to analog conversion is not, but that is only a small part of the equation. In any case, I'd still like to know how much 'worse' off I am than someone with a dedicated sound card. 🙂

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Yes but all the audio processing is still done by the CPU

Oh.. gotcha then.
In that case you'll suffer a small performance hit (instead of playing games at 60FPS, try 50 or 55). Remember that CPUs aren't the bottleneck for games anymore. It's your GPU. So I really doubt that you'll suffer a considerable hit.

-TPG

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy

Yes but all the audio processing is still done by the CPU

Oh.. gotcha then.
In that case you'll suffer a small performance hit (instead of playing games at 60FPS, try 50 or 55). Remember that CPUs aren't the bottleneck for games anymore. It's your GPU. So I really doubt that you'll suffer a considerable hit.

-TPG

The bottleneck depends on the game and what CPU\GPU you're using.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy

Yes but all the audio processing is still done by the CPU

Oh.. gotcha then.
In that case you'll suffer a small performance hit (instead of playing games at 60FPS, try 50 or 55). Remember that CPUs aren't the bottleneck for games anymore. It's your GPU. So I really doubt that you'll suffer a considerable hit.

-TPG

The bottleneck depends on the game and what CPU\GPU you're using.

And the resolution/video settings 🙂

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Err... right. Sorry, I was reading this post and another post (some guy had a 7800GTX) so .... I got a little confused.

 

[corkyg]

Why not go with what your own ears prefer? Aside from lab tests, etc., judging audio performance is in the ear of the beholder. Sounds like a good test for an "A-B" test with two systems.

 

[Davez621]

OK guys so far none of these posts are really helping that much and I don't want this to stray from the original topic.

Corky, when I mentioned performance, I mean how will having USB speakers affect my framerate in games? I'm not referring to audio quality (something which really can't be tested).

The best I've been able to do is check my CPU usage in task manager when playing things like MP3s or CDs. This doesn't tell me much.

And Pentium Guy, although you may very well be right, it seems strange that there would be a hit of 10-15% (from 60fps to 50fps) considering I'm using a Pentium 4. When I originally bought these speakers in 1999, I was using a Pentium II 350 MHz, and I noticed roughly the same drop. Shouldn't having a CPU 10 times faster cause the CPU utilization to drop by a similar amount - i.e. 1/10th that of the P2? It *should* therefore be 1.0-1.5% , but it clearly isn't. :disgust: